


The Gravedigger's Raven

by TheLoneliestofAll



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 12:40:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4625679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLoneliestofAll/pseuds/TheLoneliestofAll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The tale of an old gravedigger and his raven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gravedigger's Raven

**Author's Note:**

> I had written this a while back for an original series I planned to work on called 'Stories from Creaky Hollow.' It was to be a short story collection set in, well, Creaky Hollow; a fictional town from my own mind reminiscent of Halloweentown, and other such movies and stories. A town in which universes collide, and dimensions shift uneasily, and Elder Gods lurk beyond the shadows of its denizens, shifting fate, and taking each person's destiny into their own hands.
> 
> A town inhabited by zombies, goblins, ghosts, aliens, witches, wizards, and a whole slew of other fantastic, magical and legendary creatures.
> 
> Unfortunately I lost steam, and I haven't felt like writing for the world as much as I had hoped I would. So I want to apologize to all the characters and odd inhabitants I've created over the course of the idea bubbling, and cooking in the depths of my mind. They will be missed. By me, and the people (though they of course will never know this) who will never get to see their brilliant traits, and the overused tropes that I have pinned to them.
> 
> Please enjoy this small story.

There are very little things that are beautiful in the town of Creaky Hollow, but all locals insist that one of the most beautiful things to have ever existed in the town is the relationship between the old gravedigger Hermes, and his pet Raven, Montague. Hermes was a rough old man, and his calloused fingers were hard at work every other day, digging up graves for the recently deceased locals. Montague would be by his side through it all, and he would be given his share of special treats acquired from the zombie restaurant Limbs N’ Brainz.

It was perhaps not at all a shock to anyone when Montague passed away, as a Raven’s life expectancy is far less than that of a human’s. But still people traveled from all over the town to offer their condolences to Hermes, and he would cry on their shoulders and thank them for their kind words. The cemetery, now known to everyone as Raven’s Cry, was at the time named after a local Lord, Hieronymus Jinx, who had become good friends with Hermes through a series of rather unfortunate family related deaths at his castle in the woods nearby Creaky Hollow.  
  
When Hieronymus had heard of Montague’s death, he sent him a small box adorned with gems of all kinds, all ranging from small to large in size. On the top of the box was inscribed ‘Montague, the best damn bird who ever lived,’ and Hermes cried so much when he received his friends little makeshift coffin that it is said he filled up all the little holes he had dug that day out of grief. Hermes buried Montague the very next day during a small ceremony he had held with all of his family and closest friends, including Hieronymus, who had insisted on making the trip only because his dear old friend asked him to attend.  
  
It was decided that he would dig a hole next to the spot where he had chosen to be buried, so they could be together even in death. The gravestone used was given to Hermes as a gift from his childhood friend who owned the stonemasonry. It was a cross with a Raven perched upon it. Every day Hermes would pass by Montagues grave and cry, every day he would kneel down beside it and talk to him as if he were still there, and every night before bed he would wonder if Montague was happy, wherever he was.  
  
it was well known that Hermes was getting up there in age, being ‘seventy something,’ as he told everyone. And even he knew that the feeling in his old, withering bones, and the loss of breath when digging meant something bad. On a rather dreadfully slow October morn, as he stared into one of those foreboding black holes that he made a living out of, he began to question if the feeling meant that he, like Montague, would pass soon. And being a ‘seventy something’ year old male, and having experience with death as he did, he had a pretty good feeling that that was exactly what it meant. A few days after that he started digging his own hole, and he sent letters to everyone he had ever known. Sometimes apologizing, and sometimes not. His words, being the words of a dying man, were not really colorful or optimistic, but he felt that they mattered.  
  
So on he wrote into the early hours of the morning, feeling each second tick away as if the clock was just throwing them away like they didn’t matter. He saw the irony in things, and the beauty in other things. He saw the grotesqueness of the world, and the horrible monstrosities that had been born from it. He saw things the way they truly were, and he felt that he was ready to be free from existence.  
  
And so it was that only a week after, he had passed on while lying down next to Montague’s grave, talking of his past with his dear old friend. When they found him, they held the service right away, and buried him in his rightful resting place. From then on, whenever people had entered the cemetery, the cries of the Ravens followed them as they visited the dearly departed. And Hieronymus, shortly before he himself died, renamed the cemetery Raven’s Cry, after Hermes, and his dear old Montague.  
 **  
**


End file.
